Pubdate: Thu, 13 Jun 2002 Source: Sacramento Bee (CA) Copyright: 2002 The Sacramento Bee Contact: http://www.sacbee.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/376 Author: Wayne Wilson, Bee Staff Writer Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/ocbc.htm (Oakland Cannabis Court Case) FEDERAL INJUNCTION HALTS POT BUYERS CLUBS Three cannabis buyers clubs that are still functioning must immediately halt the distribution of marijuana under a permanent injunction issued by U.S. District Judge Charles R. Breyer. The order, dated and filed Monday in San Francisco, is expected to further disenfranchise California's medical marijuana patients, some of whom depend on pot cooperatives for their medicine. Seriously ill Californians, under state law, have had the right to use marijuana, with a doctor's recommendation, since passage of Proposition 215, the "Compassionate Use Act," in 1996. But U.S. law bars the cultivation, distribution or possession of marijuana by anyone, and federal authorities have been using every tactic available to them to stop the gains made by California's pro-pot brigade. By employing a permanent injunction to stop the distribution of cannabis by cooperatives, the government avoids the necessity of charging and trying the clubs criminally before California jurors who might have voted for Prop. 215. Monday's ruling has an unfortunate downside, according to Robert A. Raich, an attorney for the Oakland Cannabis Buyers Cooperative, one of the three clubs affected by the order. Now patients who don't grow their own medicine "will have to go out to the streets and be exposed to the criminal element, as well as the danger of getting medicine of questionable quality," he said. Such things actually did happen the last time the federal government shut down a pot club, Raich said. "Some of its members did, indeed, get robbed or were sold something that was not marijuana," he observed. According to Raich, however, the order by Breyer came as no surprise. "We had been anticipating this for some time. We even asked the judge to expedite it," he said. "Now we are finally in a posture where we can appeal all the issues" to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, Raich said. The only issue off the table, according to Raich, is the distribution or cultivation of marijuana for medical necessity. That was addressed, and rejected, by the U.S. Supreme Court last May. "A medical-necessity exception for marijuana is at odds with the terms of the (U.S.) Controlled Substances Act," Justice Clarence Thomas wrote for the court, which voted unanimously, 8-0. "The statute reflects a determination that marijuana has no medical benefits worthy of an exception, outside the confines of a government-approved research project," he stated. In addition to the Oakland Cannabis Buyers Cooperative, which provides pot to patients suffering from AIDS, multiple sclerosis and other serious ailments, Monday's order will also impact the Marin Alliance for Medical Marijuana and the Ukiah Cannabis Buyers Club, Raich said. Two other cooperatives were originally a part of the action, but they are no longer operating, Raich said. - --- MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom